Yeah, but our withdrawl of the no-fly zone and failure to assist the rebels (after indicating we would have) was all-US decision making.

I don't know much about the reasoning behind it, but some suggest we got really scared of a post saddam 'rawandastyle' bloodletting. Some one else who knows more than I said that the fear was a fragmented state with a Kurdish north, a Shia south and a very hated sunni-core. And of course, just about every nation with oil in the region would hate to see a kurdish state.... While Iran would view a sunni southern state as a natural ally, maybe even a future political unification... Maybe thats why...

And I don't advocate that we should have done as the UN said, but we *should* have done as reason suggested and not waged this war. No matter how it ends up it won't end up serving our national interests. This is really operation 'Iraqi putsch screw' ;-)

Davin L.